Nuclear Egypt?

Note limited US expressions of support contrasted with Israeli “displeasure” (in turn contrast US response to Egypt c.f. Iran) …

Time for the N word

EXCERPT

With this in mind many wonder whether Egypt’s peaceful nuclear ambitions will be tolerated. Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli daily, has already voiced displeasure with developments in Cairo. In an article published on 24 September the paper argued that the “real threat” of the Iranian nuclear programme is not that Tehran would launch a missile against Israel but that the project would drag the entire Middle East into a race for nuclear technology. Egypt’s announcement, it said, “might be the first step in this race under the politically correct rubric of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”

Amira Howeidy investigates the sudden interest in reviving Egypt’s stalled nuclear programme

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Al Ahram :: 28 September – 4 October 2006 :: Issue No. 814

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The nuclear reactor in Inshas, north of Cairo, is the project most associated with Egypt’s previous forays into nuclear technology

Amid all the hype surrounding the ruling National Democratic Party’s (NDP) fourth annual conference last week no one expected the N word to pop up, let alone evolve — literally overnight — into a top government priority. Yet ever since President Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal — recently promoted to assistant secretary-general of the NDP — brought up the issue of nuclear energy on 21 September, the topic has been the subject of frenzied speculation dominating the pages of the press.

On Sunday, two decades after Egypt shelved its nuclear programme indefinitely, the Supreme Council for Energy created an ad-hoc committee comprised of five ministries — including electricity and energy, petrol and defence — to explore the nuclear option. It was the first time the council had convened in 18 years.

According to Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Yunis, Egypt could have an operational nuclear power plant within 10 years. The plan, he said, is to build a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant at Al-Dabaa on the Mediterranean North coast, and with construction costs estimated at $1.5 billion the government will almost certainly seek foreign investment to finance the project.

It is essential, the minister stressed, for Egypt to develop alternative energy sources rather than continue to rely on non-renewable hydrocarbons for electricity production. With oil and gas prices at high levels internationally, the government is losing billions of dollars a year selling fuel to Egyptians at subsidised prices.

Yet until Gamal Mubarak floated the nuclear option last week there had been no signs of government concern over the depletion of oil and gas reserves or any indication that it viewed nuclear energy as a viable alternative. Egypt has continued to export natural gas to Israel despite domestic opposition, and the Electricity and Energy Ministry’s long- term strategy, which covered the period to 2022 — recently updated to 2027 — made no mention of nuclear energy.

All the signs were that Egypt had dismissed the nuclear option out of hand after it abandoned its nuclear programme in 1986 after widespread safety concerns were voiced in the wake of that year’s Chernobyl disaster in the then Soviet Ukraine. And while the sudden shift in the government’s position has been cautiously welcomed by local scientists and energy specialists, suspicions remain over the motives and seriousness of the move.

“I was as surprised as everybody else when I heard of this 180 degrees shift in state policy,” Ezzat Abdel-Aziz, former director of the Atomic Energy Institute, told Al-Ahram Weekly. “Whenever I brought up the issue of nuclear energy with [Minister of Electricity and Energy] Hassan Yunis in the past he would urge me to stop talking about things that bring trouble.”

Abdel-Aziz detected the first signs of the government’s shift following Gamal Mubarak’s return from what was billed as a private trip to Washington last May, when he was quoted as saying that the US have no objections to Egypt generating nuclear energy.

“I could see that something happened while he was in Washington,” says Abdel-Aziz, “and that makes me rather sceptical.”

Hours after Gamal Mubarak dropped his nuclear bombshell at the NDP conference, US Ambassador to Egypt Richard Ricciardone was ready with Washington’s response. The US, he said, is ready to “cooperate” with Egypt if it decides to develop its nuclear generating capacity.

“I fear, though I hope I’m wrong,” says Abdel-Aziz, “that the US will agree to this only to impose conditions later.”

He recalls how, in 1993, he was invited with other nuclear and energy experts to the presidential palace for a five-hour meeting with President Mubarak. The president wanted to sound out their views on nuclear energy, but at the end of the meeting he concluded the time “wasn’t right” for such a project.

“It seemed clear Egypt was facing a lot of external pressure,” says Abdel-Aziz, who was responsible for designing Libya’s nuclear programme and also worked on Iraqi nuclear projects.

Now he fears Egypt will be pressured into signing the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT) additional protocol which expands the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspections mandate, adding new monitoring measures such as no-notice inspections at all facilities.

Mustafa Elwi, a professor at Cairo University’s faculty of economics and political science and an expert in nuclear weapons, describes the additional protocol as a “very intrusive and restrictive [inspection] system” that Egypt “should never sign”.

Israel remains the only nuclear power in the Middle East to date and is one of the main advocates of punitive sanctions against Iran for pursuing a nuclear programme, despite the fact that Tehran insists the programme is purely civilian, and claims the IAEA’s three-year inspection mission did nothing to disprove.

With this in mind many wonder whether Egypt’s peaceful nuclear ambitions will be tolerated. Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli daily, has already voiced displeasure with developments in Cairo. In an article published on 24 September the paper argued that the “real threat” of the Iranian nuclear programme is not that Tehran would launch a missile against Israel but that the project would drag the entire Middle East into a race for nuclear technology. Egypt’s announcement, it said, “might be the first step in this race under the politically correct rubric of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”

“Expect pressure from Israel,” says Elwi, “but [developing a peaceful nuclear programme] is our right as a signatory to the NPT and nobody can deprive us of it.”

But how far will Egypt be allowed to progress in this direction before a repeat of the Iranian scenario?

“Iran is entirely different,” says Ambassador Mohamed Shaker, Egypt’s former representative at the IAEA and head of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Relations. “Iran wasn’t very open with the IAEA and enriched uranium without the agency’s knowledge.” In 1986 Egypt signed an agreement to build nuclear reactors with Australia supplying the enriched uranium to be used as nuclear fuel. Under the agreement any extra fuel would go returned to its source, meaning Egypt would not retain any extra enriched uranium that might be used for other purposes, said Shaker.

Similar conditions are likely to apply to any future project, leaving Egypt dependent on others to maintain the generating capacity of any nuclear power stations it builds. So doesn’t this compromise Egypt’s sovereignty in the essential strategic area of energy?

“Benefits won’t accrue 100 per cent to Egypt,” believes Shaker. “The world has become intertwined. The country that provides Egypt with the technology will benefit and so will Egypt.”

Others don’t think it’s quite that simple.

“Any talk about developing nuclear capability is meaningless in the absence of independent national decision- making,” says Hassan Nafaa, professor of political science at Cairo University. “We would need huge financial resources, specialised human resources and an iron will in facing the [diplomatic] challenges such a policy will bring.”

And with Egypt’s political subservience to the US it is “national independence that is the missing factor”.

In 1963 Gamal Abdel-Nasser took the decision to build Egypt’s first nuclear power station on the Mediterranean Coast at Sidi Kreir but the project was interrupted by the 1967 War. Following Egypt’s victory in the 1973 War, the project was revived under Anwar El-Sadat. The climate appeared more promising when US president Richard Nixon visited Cairo in 1974 and offered to provide Egypt with 600 megawatt nuclear reactors, though the scheme was ultimately abandoned owing to a lack of funds.

A third attempt to develop a nuclear programme was made in 1986 when Egypt was close to signing an agreement with a German company to build the first of ten planned nuclear reactors to be completed by 2000. Competition between Germany and other countries over their roles in the project hampered its implementation. The situation was further complicated by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, triggering a scare wave in Egypt and an anti-nuclear campaign led by the opposition Wafd Party.

Eighteen years later and the nuclear option appears to be back on the table though it is far from clear whether it will progress any further than in the past.

According to Abdel-Aziz, with four atomic institutes, Egypt has a sophisticated base capable of implementing any project, meaning the real question remains just how serious the state is in its sudden conversion to nuclear energy.